Enemy Mine
Here is an old picture of a coal mine we drove past while roaming around Eastern Kentucky a couple of years ago. We briefly had it in our minds that we might move back to Kentucky and were considering an idea that might take us to this part of the state, but then the realities of interpersonal relations strongly suggested this might be a bad plan. The way the state's shifted politically in the interim put the nail in that coffin and convinced us that three-hundred miles is probably a good distance to maintain.
I've talked before about how coal has affected that political shift, as Kentuckians are convinced the only thing that will bring back lost jobs in places like this is the elimination of any sort of environmental regulation or taxation structure. I've already mentioned how the drop in demand resulting from technological advance in the extraction of competing forms of energy make it unlikely coal jobs will ever come back to Eastern Kentucky, but that's only part of the tale. What I haven't mentioned is metallurgical coal.
You can divide coal into two types: thermal coal and metallurgical coal. Thermal coal is coal used in power plants to produce steam, which turns electrical turbines. This is where most of Wyoming's coal goes. Metallurgical coal is coal used by steel mills to produce "coke," a type of bituminous coal cooked at high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. Coke is then combined with iron ore to make steel. A lot of Kentucky's coal has gone to metallurgical markets in recent decades and has been used to fuel a building boom in China and the rest of Asia. With the downturn in China's economy, demand for metallurgical coal has plummeted, leaving mines like this one idle.
Enemy Mine
Here is an old picture of a coal mine we drove past while roaming around Eastern Kentucky a couple of years ago. We briefly had it in our minds that we might move back to Kentucky and were considering an idea that might take us to this part of the state, but then the realities of interpersonal relations strongly suggested this might be a bad plan. The way the state's shifted politically in the interim put the nail in that coffin and convinced us that three-hundred miles is probably a good distance to maintain.
I've talked before about how coal has affected that political shift, as Kentuckians are convinced the only thing that will bring back lost jobs in places like this is the elimination of any sort of environmental regulation or taxation structure. I've already mentioned how the drop in demand resulting from technological advance in the extraction of competing forms of energy make it unlikely coal jobs will ever come back to Eastern Kentucky, but that's only part of the tale. What I haven't mentioned is metallurgical coal.
You can divide coal into two types: thermal coal and metallurgical coal. Thermal coal is coal used in power plants to produce steam, which turns electrical turbines. This is where most of Wyoming's coal goes. Metallurgical coal is coal used by steel mills to produce "coke," a type of bituminous coal cooked at high temperatures in an oxygen-free environment. Coke is then combined with iron ore to make steel. A lot of Kentucky's coal has gone to metallurgical markets in recent decades and has been used to fuel a building boom in China and the rest of Asia. With the downturn in China's economy, demand for metallurgical coal has plummeted, leaving mines like this one idle.